I got an e-mail from Stuart Semmel reading, in its entirety: “‘Boxing Day.’ Suddenly it’s everywhere.”
Preliminary research suggests that Boxing Day–the day-after-Christmas holiday celebrated in the U.K. and around the Commonwealth–is, if not exactly ubiquitous in the U.S., at least establishing some outposts as a not-one-off-Britishism. To wit:
- A post today in today’s Washington Post’s weather blog reads, “Welcome to the one year anniversay [sic] of the Boxing Day blizzard, known locally as No-mageddon, as the snow skipped over Washington.”
- Jimmy’s No. 43, a New York gastrobub, is celebrating its annual Boxing Day Coat Drive.
- “A Penny for your Boxing-Day Thoughts,” reads a headline in today’s Pasadena Star-News.
- The footwear website walkingonacloud.com is running a Boxing Day promotion.
If Boxing Day indeed has U.S. legs, the proof of the (Christmas) pudding comes from none other than Republican guru Karl Rove. Interviewed on December 22 by Fox News’s Mark Steyn, Rove said:
We’re now at a point in a primary where every single moment matters. You cannot imagine how many demands there when you have so few days, 12 days plus, you know, including Christmas day and Boxing Day, and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day….
“You stunned me, Karl,” Steyn responded. “I didn’t know they celebrated Boxing Day in Iowa.”
notoneoffbritishisms.com 
It’s a nice holiday for British advocates of noblesse oblige relationships with their servitors. Methinks the faux-egalitarianism of the United States argues against its inclusion in our lexicon.
Even though December 26 is not a bank – erm, public – holiday in the US, calling it Boxing Day is not completely pointless. The day after Christmas is traditionally a very busy shopping day; just as the day after Thanksgiving has come to be known as Black Friday, perhaps Boxing Day will catch on in that context.
On 12/23 Alex Trebek announced that Jeopardy would return on Boxing Day. Cute.
The proof of the pudding comes in the taste. Not even Karl Rove has “proof” in his “pudding.”
Traditionally christmas presents were opened, or un-boxed, on boxing day, Before that it was known as the feast of st. stephen (as in the xmas carol, Good King Wencelas, who stepped out on the feast of stephen i.e. the day after christmas.)
looked, not stepped
He looked out and then stepped out with his page to deliver gifts to a poor man.
Not quite. It was the day after Christmas when tradesmen were given a “Christmas box” – a gift or tip in recognition of their service during the year.
Here’s an entry from this year: “Update: Christmas Eve and Boxing Day storm threats” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/update-christmas-eve-and-december-26-winter-storm-threats/2012/12/22/6af3ac7c-4c66-11e2-b709-667035ff9029_blog.html
Boxing Day, as I understand it, because it was the day in the year when the church poor-boxes were opened and emptied, and the contents distributed to the poor and needy of the parish.